Dr. Njoki Mwarumba holds a B.A. in Communications and Community Development from Daystar University - Kenya, an M.S. in Hospitality Management and a Ph.D. in Fire and Emergency Management from Oklahoma State University. She is an Assistant Professor of Emergency Management at SUNY Empire State University.

Njoki situates her professional engagements on a foundation cognizant that globally, human systems and structures create and aggravate disaster outcomes and especially among people with the least choices and protections. She examines minimally analyzed indicators of social progress and human development as critical to analyzing and alleviating produced vulnerability and disaster outcomes. Her preferred professional focus lies at the intersection of public health disasters, social determinants of health, asset-based approaches to minimizing social vulnerability, and community-based participatory action research.

Some of her recent endeavors include; establishment of the Disaster Management Executive Program (DMEP) at Strathmore University in Kenya, training and conducting community based participatory action research in partnership with youth members at the Ouko Community Initiative in Muhoroni Kenya, consulting with Invest in Africa (IIA) on organizational pandemic response and business continuity, cross-national research on health stigma among people of Chinese origin, and collaboration with Tribal Management and Emergency Science students at the University of Nebraska Omaha on drone technology for strengthening Tribal sovereignty during disaster preliminary damage assessment.

Dr. Samantha Montano has a B.S. in Psychology from Loyola University New Orleans and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Emergency Management from North Dakota State University. Currently, Samantha is an assistant professor of emergency management at Massachusetts Maritime Academy.

Her research interests cut across areas of interest to emergency management. She primarily studies nonprofits, volunteerism, and informal aid efforts in disaster. She is the author of Disasterology: Dispatches from The Frontlines of The Climate Crisis published in 2021 by Park Row, and co-founder of the Center for Climate Adaptation Research.

In addition to research, she is passionate about public engagement and has been interviewed in many national publications including the New York Times, The Atlantic, National Geographic, USA Today, the Los Angeles Times and published in the Washington Post, Teen Vogue, City Lab, and Vox.

Scott Gabriel Knowles is a historian of disaster worldwide and Professor in the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) Graduate School of Science and Technology Policy.

He focuses on the historical processes that make disasters possible, and the application of history to reduce future disasters. Since March of 2020 Knowles has hosted #COVIDCalls, a live podcast discussion of the COVID-19 pandemic. He is publication series co-editor (with Kim Fortun) of “Critical Studies in Risk and Disaster” with the University of Pennsylvania Press, and author of The Disaster Experts.

He has previously been a research fellow or visiting faculty member at NOVA University of Lisbon, CIGIDEN/Catolica Chile, the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science, the Rachel Carson Center, and the University of Tokyo.

His work has appeared in the Natural Hazards Observer, History and Technology, Journal of Policy History, American Scientist, Technology and Culture, and Engineering Studies—he has also written for the The Hankyoreh, New York Times, Washington Post, Huffington Post, Slate, Conservation Magazine, U.S. News and World Report, The Philadelphia Inquirer, and The Hill.